8 women

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Movie
German title 8 women
Original title 8 females
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 2002
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director François Ozon
script François Ozon,
Marina de Van
production Olivier Delbosc ,
Marc Missonnier
music Krishna Levy
camera Jeanne Lapoirie
cut Lawrence Bawedin
occupation
synchronization

8 women (Original title: 8 femmes ) is a French comedy film with crime , melodrama and musical elements from 2002, for which director François Ozon brought some of the best-known French actresses to the screen. The play Huit femmes by Robert Thomas served as a literary model . The film was celebrated at the Berlinale and received, among other things, a Silver Bear for the cast, which was also awarded the European Film Prize. In France, 8 women was among the ten most successful films of the year. In Germany, too, more than a million viewers saw the film in cinemas.

action

On a snowy morning in a French town during the 1950s: Suzon, who is studying in England , is returning home for Christmas. Her mother Gaby picked her up from the train station and takes her to the family's remote home. There Suzon is received by her grandmother Mamy, her younger sister Catherine, the cook Madame Chanel, as well as her aunt Augustine and the new housemaid Louise. Only Suzon's father Marcel - the only man in the house - whose business has been bad lately, does not show up. When Louise wanted to bring his breakfast to his room, she heard a shrill scream, because the host was lying dead in his bed with a knife in his back.

Fearing that the murderer might return to cover up any traces, Catherine locks the dead man's room. The attempt to call the police fails because the telephone cable was cut. The car won't start either. The women are therefore forced to find the murderer themselves. Because of the amount of snow that makes it impossible to leave the property, they realize that one of them must have committed the murder.

Pierrette, the victim's sister, finally arrives as a surprise. You have received a mysterious call and therefore went to the scene. The ladies present now begin to interrogate each other. It turns out that all eight women had a motive for murder and the opportunity to act. Each of them tries in vain through lies and silence to keep their respective secrets - poisoning, lesbian tendencies, pregnancy, unrequited love, and extramarital affairs.

Mutual accusations, squabbles and fisticuffs heat up the atmosphere in the house until Catherine finally clarifies the situation and describes the true course of the previous evening: After all the other women visited Marcel the night before and - given his own financial difficulties - with him Claims and confessions had cost a lot of nerves, Catherine staged the murder with her father to show him how selfish and greedy “his” women are behind their facades. Marcel was not murdered; he was alive and well in his room the whole time, from where he could witness the meanness of women towards one another. When Catherine unlocks her father's room, he puts a pistol to his head and shoots himself to the horror of all eight women.

characters

According to the title of the film, eight women are at the center of the action. The alleged murder victim, family man Marcel, about whom a large part of the dialogues are about, is only shown as an extra. The eight different women, on the other hand, are characterized in detail and presented in the opening credits of the film with flowers as a description of their personality and appearance:

Mamy

Pansy

Mamy, who is compared to a purple pansy in the opening credits, is Marcel's elderly mother-in-law. She sits in a wheelchair and always tries to mediate between her daughters, who are always arguing, Gaby and Augustine. But behind her grandmother's facade hides a hypocritical woman who shamelessly exploits the hospitality of her son-in-law and secretly reaches for the bottle. When she jumps out of her wheelchair to run after Augustine, who has become hysterical, she portrays the reuse of her legs as “a Christmas miracle” to her amazed family. She is also extremely stingy. In order not to have to give Marcel her shares, which would save him from his financial difficulties, she claims the papers were stolen from her. Her biggest secret, however, is that she once poisoned her husband, a colonel who had given her a carefree life but whom she could never stand.

Gaby

orchid

Gaby is the wife of Marcel, who is introduced in reference to her glamorous leopard coat with a yellow orchid . She attaches great importance to her appearance and is afraid of getting older. But her wealth and financial security are most important to her. She often gets into arguments with her brittle sister Augustine, to which Gaby reacts with cold-hearted remarks ("I am beautiful and rich and she is ugly and poor."). She always tries to maintain the image of the venerable, caring wife, and thus makes herself a hypocrite. While she mocks the immoral lifestyle of her housemaid Louise and her sister-in-law Pierrette, she has a lover of her own: her husband's business partner - Jacques Farnoux - for whom she wanted to leave Marcel. Although she was once pregnant out of wedlock with Suzon, she insults Suzon as a prostitute when she confesses that she is expecting an illegitimate child. When Gaby learns that her cook, Madame Chanel, is fond of women, she cannot hold back her horror ("You need treatment. You are sick."). Later, however, she gives herself to Pierrette in a deep kiss after an initial fight on the carpet.

Augustine

Follicle fruit

Augustine, an old, inconspicuous maid for whom the closed follicle of an Orleans bush is used as a metaphor in the opening credits , is Marcel's neurotic and spiteful sister-in-law. As a “lethal injection on duty” she constantly gives her ideas of correct behavior, shows no understanding of the joys of others and is always afraid of being disadvantaged. She has heart problems, and in more than just one relationship: She has deep feelings slumbering in her that she doesn't dare to live out. She is secretly a member of a book club, where she regularly borrows pompous romance novels such as "The Gondola of Lovers", and secretly adores her brother-in-law Marcel. She even writes love letters to him, but she doesn't send them. After Augustine learns that her mother Mamy has her father on the conscience, from whose death she could never recover, she is first beside herself and then deeply sad. She later overcomes her grief and gets everyone's attention as she walks down the stairs as a blooming beauty in her sister's dress, without glasses and with loose red hair.

Louise

orchid

Louise has only recently started working as a housekeeper in the family home. The white orchid represents both her youth and her sexual potential. As it turns out, Louise already knew her landlord Marcel before and got involved in an affair with him, whereupon she got the job of maid. Madame Chanel describes her as "a slut who moves from place to place in the hope of sleeping with the host". When she is confronted by Gaby, Louise openly admits that she is Marcel's lover. Marcel had “orgasms like never before” with her, “often through practices that could be tried out beneath Gaby's dignity”. But it is actually Gaby to whom she is loyal, even devoted, as a servant, but from whose lack of authority and assertiveness she is disappointed.

Pierrette

rose

Pierrette is Marcel's sister, whose sensuality is reflected in the red rose . She is known as a former nude dancer whose wicked and dissolute love life is particularly appalled by her sister-in-law Gaby and makes her the main suspect for the other women again and again. Pierrette enjoys life to the fullest and is not averse to women. She has a secret relationship with Madame Chanel, but she is increasingly fascinated by Gaby. On the supposed murder night, she had secretly visited her brother in order to extort a large amount of money from him. She had given the money to her lover for a trip to Mexico . When it turns out that her and Gaby's lover Jacques Farnoux are one and the same man, the two women get into an argument in which they first fight and then kiss in each other's arms.

Suzon

rose

Suzon is Gaby's eldest daughter and is portrayed by a blooming pink rose in the opening credits. She studies in England and has a boyfriend there who she is very much in love with. As "Inspector Suzon" it is above all she who questions the other women about the alleged murder, even though she was also in the house on the "night of the murder". She had taken the train a day earlier and had sneaked into the house to talk to Marcel in private. When asked what this interview was about, she confesses to the others that she is pregnant without being married. Your mother is shocked. When Pierrette makes hints that Gaby was already pregnant with Suzon when she married Marcel, she urges her to find out who her real father is. This was Gaby's great love and was killed in a car accident before Suzon was born. When Suzon gets into an argument with her sister Catherine, she reveals that she is glad not to be Marcel's biological daughter, because the child in her womb comes from him.

Catherine

daisy

Catherine is the boyish youngest daughter of Gaby. Their innocence and idealism are symbolized by the daisy . She enjoys reading crime, espionage and adventure novels, and it bothers her very much to be treated like a small child by everyone. Convinced that she is the only one who genuinely loves her father, she stages the murder and takes all precautions, such as cutting the phone line and car cables, to make the others believe the killer is among them. When Madame Chanel sees through her game, Catherine scares her with a shot from a revolver and thus silences her. She slips the revolver under Pierrette, who is then again suspected of being a murderer. When Madame Chanel does decide to bring the truth to light, Catherine is forced to admit the staging of the murder.

Madame Chanel

Sunflower

Madame Chanel is the good-natured cook who has also looked after Suzon and Catherine for many years as a nanny. The sunflower illustrates her warm-hearted and down-to-earth disposition. Her admission to be a lesbian and to play more than just cards with Pierrette shocked the other women to a great extent. Because she mistakenly believes that there was more than just sibling affection between Pierrette and her brother, her jealousy is charged as a motive for murder. As the only one who sees through Catherine's production, Madame Chanel wants to support her theory with one final proof, which is why she leaves the house for a short time and sees Marcel standing at his window from the garden. When she returns, a shot is fired, causing Madame Chanel to fall to the ground in shock and subsequently unable to speak.

background

Pre-production

Originally, director François Ozon wanted to make a remake of George Cukor's comedy Die Frauen (1939), in which only actresses were used and even all domestic animals were female. The rights for a remake of The Women , however, had already secured the two actresses Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts in the 1990s . Since Ozon still wanted to direct a similar women’s film, he had to look for another template. He finally came across an almost forgotten play by the French author Robert Thomas , which was first performed on the theater stage in 1958 under the title Huit femmes and was filmed for French television in 1972 (with Corinne Le Poulain as Suzon, among others ).

Like Cukor, Ozon relied on big names in the film industry when casting his theatrical version. He first asked Catherine Deneuve whether she would be willing to play Gaby. After her acceptance, Isabelle Huppert , Emmanuelle Béart and Fanny Ardant also followed . With Danielle Darrieux , who had already been in front of the film camera in the early 1930s, he was also able to win over a "veteran" of French cinema for the project. Firmine Richard seemed to Ozon perfect for the role of Madame Chanel, while the up- and- coming stars Virginie Ledoyen and Ludivine Sagnier convinced him for the roles of the two daughters. Together with the scriptwriter Marina de Van , Ozon then rewrote the dialogues of the literary source in order to tailor them to the body of his eight actresses.

Filming

The two-month filming took place from March to May 2001, at a time when Virginie Ledoyen was pregnant not only in the film but also in real life. The film was shot in the then newly established film studios in Aubervilliers , a small suburb in the north of Paris . When it became known that screen divas such as Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart and Fanny Ardant agreed to stand in front of a camera together, jealousies and squabbles were expected on the film set. “We formed François Ozone's harem,” Isabelle Huppert summarized, “he wanted us to face each other like wild lionesses in the circus arena”. However, none of the actresses pushed themselves into the center, but rather subordinated their own ego to the community in the service of a harmonious staging. “None of us wanted to be capricious and ridiculous with quirks,” said Fanny Ardant after the filming was over, while Catherine Deneuve even enthused the press: “We got along very well and formed a real extended family.” Emmanuelle Béart also confirmed, that the work together went harmoniously: “There was great solidarity between us. It also welds you together when you see that even the oldest rabbits struggle with the same stage fright as the newbies. "

Director François Ozon (2005)

In his only fifth feature film, director Ozon was in his mid-thirties younger than the majority of his actresses. In order to lead them through the individual scenes with the necessary authority, Ozon used a strategy of his role model Rainer Werner Fassbinder , according to which one should first ensnare an actor, then convince them, trust them and ultimately dominate them consistently. Ozon later recalled: “Only at the beginning there was a little tension. My actresses weren't entirely sure of the nature of the film. So I had to show them that I was the boss and what I was getting at. After that, they trusted me. ”The singing and dancing performances in particular worried Deneuve and her colleagues, as none of them had any professional training in singing and dancing. Ozon thanked for the trust in his work by granting each actress a touching moment in the film, which should make her appear sympathetic to the viewer.

Ozone also saw himself as a kind of scientist. "In this film, I put eight stars in a house and watched how they react," he said in an interview. His conclusion was: “Each of these actresses can be very shy and fragile. Because they are all insecure at heart. ”Ozon sometimes felt the shoot as“ martyrdom ”:“ I need a certain closeness to my actors. Somebody like Catherine Deneuve has to work very closely with her director. But with 8 women that was impossible, because I couldn't pay more attention to anyone than the others. Everything was very democratic. And because each of the actresses has her own work style, I had to split myself into eight different people. ”He also noted that there was no rivalry between the individual women, but that each wanted to be his“ favorite ”, so he“ wanted to Strive for neutrality ”,“ so as not to annoy anyone ”.

The much-quoted scene in which Deneuve and Ardant wallow on the floor fighting and then kiss was no easy task for either of the actresses. “At first we were both a little scared. It's not easy for actresses to hit each other and then kiss in one scene, ”Deneuve admitted. “But I trusted Ozon that he would not illuminate any ugly details, but would stage the scene with a certain elegance. Because nothing is more difficult than filming a kiss well. ”Ardant was also afraid of hurting her colleague:“ It wasn't easy to hit her because I'm not particularly athletic and also quite clumsy. Fortunately, Ozon had a very clear idea of ​​the scene: it was clear to him that I would have the upper hand. "

Music and dance numbers

Each of the eight actresses performs a song in the film that underlines the personality of their character or represents a moment of truth when the masks fall. All eight songs, which had already been successful in the French hit parades as publications by various artists, were sung by the actresses in the recording studio:

  • Catherine (Ludivine Sagnier) sings at the beginning of the film Papa t'es plus dans le coup (German: Papa, you are not up to date ), a fast-paced pop song to which she and Gaby (Catherine Deneuve) and Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) dancing wildly. The song was first released in 1963 and was originally sung by French singer Sheila .
  • After a tangible argument with Gaby, Augustine (Isabelle Huppert) interprets the melancholy song Message personnel (German: personal message ) in a kind of spoken chant, first sitting at the piano, then standing with a rehearsed choreography , while Mamy (Danielle Darrieux), Suzon, Madame Chanel (Firmine Richard) and Catherine sitting on a staircase swaying to the beat of the music. The song was originally written by Michel Berger for Françoise Hardy and expresses Augustine's loneliness and her fears of life.
  • Shortly after her appearance, Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) performed a show in front of the seven other women for the chanson A quoi sert de vivre libre (German: What use is it to live freely ), in which she takes off her coat and jacket and her black ones Removes gloves. Her choreography, with hints of her past as a nude dancer, pays tribute to Rita Hayworth's famous striptease for Put the Blame on Mame in Gilda (1946). A quoi sert de vivre libre was originally sung by Nicoletta and explains that life is worthless without love.
  • After Suzon reveals to her mother's horror that she is pregnant, she sings mon amour, mon ami (German: my love, my friend ) in her room and dances with Catherine in a childlike manner. The music and lyrics are by André Popp and Eddy Marnay and gave Marie Laforêt a hit in 1967.
  • After Madame Chanel has admitted to love women and the others, especially Mamy and Gaby, disapprove of this, she retreats into the kitchen, where she sadly starts the song Pour ne pas vivre seul (German: In order not to live alone ) and looks out of the window crying. The ballad was written by Sébastien Balasko and Daniel Fauré, originally interpreted by Dalida and describes how women can feel drawn to women out of loneliness, men marry other men or people build cathedrals just to have the illusion that they are not alone.
  • When Augustine asks Louise (Emmanuelle Béart) how to seduce a man, she begins to sing and dance the energetic song Pile ou face (Eng .: heads or tails ). The song was composed in the 1980s by Jean-Louis d'Onofrio for Corynne Charby and illustrates Louise's attitude to life to the full.
  • When Gaby and Pierrette are alone in the living room, Gaby sings the chanson Toi jamais (German: You never ) and moves elegantly in front of the visibly fascinated Pierrette. Toi jamais , written by Michel Mallory, was first published by the singer Sylvie Vartan . Gaby complains that she is adored by numerous men, that they give her cars, jewelry and furs, but that the man she loves neither receives these worldly things nor the expected attention. It remains to be seen whether she is referring to her husband Marcel or her lover Jacques Farnoux.
  • After Marcel's suicide, Mamy sings Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux (German: There is no happy love ) to comfort Catherine. The other six women dance to the slow beat of the music. At the end of the melancholy song, all eight women stand in a row in front of the audience and hold hands - the credits begin. Based on a poem by Louis Aragon and set to music and interpreted by Georges Brassens , Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux was the only one of all eight songs that was originally sung by a man.

Backdrops and costumes

The backdrops for the manor house, where all the recordings were made, were created in the Aubervilliers film studios. The tracking shot at the beginning of the film shows a winter park that was completely painted because it was important to ozone to convey to the viewer right from the start that 8 women are a farce that should not be taken seriously. Production designer Arnaud de Moleron was inspired by English residences from the late 19th and early 20th centuries for the interior and exterior architecture of the manor house . The stage-like rooms refer to the chamber play-like character of the literary model. A curved staircase leading to the room of the alleged murder victim dominates the main room, where most of the scenes take place, while red carpets and velvet curtains, as in Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001), often frame the scenery and contrast with the green wallpaper. The colors are always strong and characterize every room as an homage to the colorful Technicolor musicals from the Hollywood studio era . Moleron used a mixture of Art Nouveau and Art Deco design for the furniture .

Director Ozon deliberately chose the 1950s as the time period for his plot in order to contrast the “frivolity” of the individual characters with the strictly conservative conventions of the time and thus make them clear to the audience. The story therefore takes place at a time when the life of the bourgeoisie was characterized by numerous taboos, especially sexual ones, such as divorce, adultery, abortion and homosexuality. In terms of costumes, too, the 1950s seemed ideal for Ozon to dress his stars as "goddess-like" and as feminine as possible. According to Moleron, the year 1953 was chosen because those involved found the fashion from that year more interesting and glamorous than that from the end of the decade. In search of inspiration, costume designer Pascaline Chavanne scoured the fashion magazines of the time and watched numerous old films as part of her research. In her work, however, she was mainly based on Christian Dior's New Look , who had revolutionized the fashion world with tight waists and wide petticoats as early as 1947 shortly after the Second World War .

To see Louise as a maid: Emmanuelle Béart

Most of the characters, like Madame Chanel in her dark gray work clothes and Mamy in her conservative lavender suit, wear the same outfit throughout the film, apart from brief flashbacks. Other costumes, like those of Gaby and Pierrette, vary from time to time with accessories such as a fur stole , coats and gloves. Catherine, on the other hand, initially wears pale blue pajamas and can later be seen in a dark green cardigan and light green three-quarter trousers, which highlights her innocent and childlike nature. At the beginning of the film, Augustine wears a red plaid dressing gown and then a bright green blouse with a brown skirt with a matching jacket. After her transformation, she is dressed in a silver-colored evening gown with a large bow and a luxurious mink stole , for which glamor icon Rita Hayworth was godmother.

At the beginning Gaby appears in a beige-colored coat with a majestic leopard collar according to her position as mistress of the house in the style of a Lana Turner . She wears a tight blue-green dress underneath. In contrast to this, her opponent Pierrette makes her first appearance in a black coat and a black jacket, which she takes off during her show, whereupon a bright red costume emerges that, like the rose in the opening credits, illustrates her sensuality like Ava Gardner's . Suzon, on the other hand, in her pink petticoat dress and her pony hairstyle is reminiscent of the young Audrey Hepburn , whose “look” was once shaped primarily by costume designer Edith Head and designer Hubert de Givenchy . For the shoes, too, Chavanne chose models that characterize the wearer. While Catherine, like Leslie Caron in An American in Paris (1951) , slips into ballerinas , which were particularly popular with girls in the 1950s, Louise wears black leather laced boots, which, like her black and white uniform, were inspired by Luis Buñuel's film Diary of a Maid of Honor (1964) and moreover illustrate Louise's masochistic tendencies.

Chavanne worked very closely with director Ozon. According to her, Ozone was so obsessed with the costumes that he asked Fanny Ardant alias Pierrette during the shoot not to wear any underwear under her skin-tight costume in order to avoid unnecessary seam marks.

Role models and movie quotes

In addition to The Women and other screwball comedies by George Cukor from the 1930s, Ozon was also inspired by American films from the 1950s. Especially the melodramas by Douglas Sirk , such as Solange es Menschen (1959), the film musicals by Vincente Minnelli , such as Gigi (1958), and the crime films by Alfred Hitchcock , such as Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead (1958), served him as a model, so that with 8 women a mixture of four different genres was created. Ozon also referred to his role model Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his women's drama The bitter tears of Petra von Kant (1972), which, like Ozon's film, takes place in one location and also addresses homosexuality among women.

While Cukor compared his actresses in the opening credits of The Women with Animals, Ozon presented his ensemble with flowers as associations of the respective type of woman. With the opening sequence, in which the camera shows the viewer a snow-covered garden with a deer, Ozon refers to Douglas Sirk's melodrama Was der Himmel Permits (1955), which ends with a similar scene. The music and dance interludes parody the brightly colored Hollywood musicals of the studio era and are at the same time a reminiscence of Jacques Demy's film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), with which Catherine Deneuve once made her international breakthrough. The criminal act within a closed society with eight suspects of the same rank conjures up Agatha Christie film adaptations, such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) or Death on the Nile (1978).

"A madness of quoting that in the end reveals a core of the truth, using means of travesty: the living quote the dead, one generation the next, and each of the divas of course also itself."

- Tobias Kniebe : Süddeutsche Zeitung
lili rere
Opposite poles of French film: Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant

The film contains numerous other allusions to film history. In an interview with Augustine, Pierrette mentions the novel The Lady of the Camellias , in the 1981 film adaptation of which Isabelle Huppert played the leading role. Pierrette's show is modeled in every detail on Rita Hayworth's famous glove striptease in Gilda (1946). With her appearance as a black cook, Madame Channel alias Firmine Richard refers to her stereotyped predecessors such as Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939) or Juanita Moore in As long as there are people . A photo showing the former employer of the maid Louise shows the actress Romy Schneider in a scene from the film Die Bankierfrau (1980), in which she played a bisexual entrepreneur. As Louise, Emmanuelle Béart initially wears a hair snail like Kim Novak in Vertigo . In front of a painting that shows the young Catherine Deneuve in her role as Gaby as she can be seen on a poster for Luis Buñuel's film Belle de Jour - Beauty of the Day (1967), Béart opens her hair, which then opens Deneuve's mane corresponds to the painting in the background.

In another scene, Deneuve quotes herself from the film The Last Metro (1980) when she says to her film daughter: "To see you next to me is both a joy - and a pain." The kiss between Gaby and Pierrette, on the other hand, plays a role Deneuves took on various lesbian roles, particularly her character in the film Desire (1983). In addition, both Deneuve and Fanny Ardant, who plays Gaby's sister-in-law Pierrette, were once in a relationship with director François Truffaut . In 8 women they quarrel over a man before the scene ends in the kiss mentioned, which Ardant also called “a kind of reconciliation between French cinema and itself” - because both actresses are considered to be opposite poles of French cinema. While Deneuve always played the unapproachable, mysterious blonde, the brunette Ardant mostly embodied passionate and spirited women. "When we kiss, we carry all the pictures with us that we have ever shot," Ardant later described. The kiss therefore "overrides the competition that has been projected into [them]".

reception

publication

8 Women premiered on January 8, 2002 in France and was shown in cinemas there from February 6, 2002. The German premiere took place on February 9, 2002 at the Berlinale , where the film took part in the competition for the Golden Bear and the ensemble of actresses was awarded the Silver Bear . Several other film festivals followed where the comedy film was presented, such as the Toronto International Film Festival . On July 11, 2002, 8 women went to the general German distribution. By November of the same year, the film attracted 1,429,767 viewers to the cinemas with 270 copies, making it the second most successful French film at the German box office after Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra 2002. The jury of the German Film and Media Evaluation awarded the film the rating "Particularly valuable" on the grounds that:

“The plot is less important than the staging, which easily and loosely deals with clichés and even with problematic topics such as greed, murder, intrigue and the power-political structures within families. [...] In particular, the design, the camera, the color scheme and the fashion harmonize perfectly in this melodramatic and at the same time satirical chamber play. "

- German film and media rating

In Germany alone, the film brought in almost the production costs of around eight million euros at 7.85 million euros. In France, 8 women were among the ten most successful films of the year with 3,711,394 viewers, and there grossed around 14.7 million euros. In the United States , the film grossed around $ 3.1 million. The total gross profit amounted to almost 32.5 million euros and was therefore more than four times as high as the budget.

Most of the critics were also euphoric, praising the ensemble, the colors and costumes as well as the numerous film quotes and the self-irony of the film. The artificiality of the plot and the scenery was emphasized in some reviews, but mostly rated positively with regard to the parody elements. 8 women was nominated for the French César film award in twelve categories, including Best Film , Best Director and Best Screenplay , but was left empty-handed in all categories due to the strong competition from films such as Roman Polański's The Pianist . At the European Film Awards ceremony , the film won six nominations in the Best Actress category with its star ensemble.

Reviews

For the lexicon of international film , 8 women was a “thrilling blend of trivial crime thriller, drama, musical, satire and portrait study”, in which “eight fascinating actresses […] play virtuously with their respective charisma”. The result was "[e] in a decidedly anti-naturalistic, subtly and stylishly staged game full of clever allusions to film history". In Der Spiegel, Oliver Hüttmann spoke of a “delicious row of bullies full of cinematic quotes”, in which, under the direction of Ozon, “the best actresses in France would be in top form”. The film is "entertaining sarcasm, artfully directed, and somehow very funny cineast trash".

Tobias Kniebe from the Süddeutsche Zeitung praised 8 women in his review as “excess of artificiality in the service of truth” and as “fireworks of star power that breaks through the armor of its stars”. The film casts a “merciless look at women, which primarily tells of love”. The result was "a riddle, a cinematic wonder, a flamboyantly successful film". Even Der Tagesspiegel was full of praise about the film: "Perfect, stylish, anti-naturalistic, quote rich and original through and through. It will begin its triumphal march through the cinemas, not just in France. "

Gunter Blank von der Welt , on the other hand, found that the film “with its pompous staging and countless allusions to film history” looked like a “hard-working art film”. In the end, his “appeal” is based on “watching the divas of French cinema charging”. The film magazine Cinema also commented critically that in the film "[a] classic Agatha Christie situation [...] into a Technicolor-colorful crime comedy with vocal interludes" was kitsched up, and compared the behavior of the protagonists with that of "transvestites before the great performance ”. The “love and man problems” of women are “literally from a Douglas Sirk melodrama”. In summary, Cinema said : “If you are looking for reality, you will find exalted artificiality, instead of real feelings, make-up dominates the scenery." Jacques Demy enlivened with elements from Agatha Christie and Douglas Sirk. "

In the United States, Variety's Lisa Nesselson described the film as "the party of bitches with great costumes". According to AO Scott of the New York Times , the crime comedy is "inexcusably cynical, even grotesque, but also pure - that is, innocent and unspoiled - fun". The film critic Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that the film was, with a wink, “a parody of over-produced Hollywood musicals”, whose “artificiality […] is so enjoyable” that “you are not surprised when the first song begins because 8 women are in no way serious about murder, the plot or anything else ”.

Awards

Awarded five film prizes for her role as Augustine: Isabelle Huppert

César

Nominated:

European film award

Won:

  • Best Actress (Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier, Firmine Richard)

Nominated:

Further

German version

The German dubbed version was created for the German theatrical release on July 11, 2002 at Constantin Produktions GmbH in Munich . The dialogue book was written by Elisabeth von Molo , who also directed the dialogue. As a homage to the film and its famous actresses, eight well-known German actresses agreed to lend their voices to the respective roles, which brought the film additional attention in Germany. In the press release of the German distribution company Constantin Film it was said: “The who is who of French film meets the crème de la crème of German actresses. A unique Franco-German summit will take place. "

role actor Voice actor
Mamy Danielle Darrieux Ruth Maria Kubitschek
Gaby Catherine Deneuve Senta Berger
Augustine Isabelle Huppert Katja Riemann
Louise Emmanuelle Béart Nina Hoss
Pierrette Fanny Ardant Hannelore Elsner
Suzon Virginie Ledoyen Nicolette Krebitz
Catherine Ludivine Sagnier Cosma Shiva Hagen
Madame Chanel Firmine Richard Jasmin Tabatabai

literature

Literary source:

Book about the film:

  • François Ozon: 8 females. L'album. La Martinière, 2002, 128 pages, ISBN 2-7324-2846-9 (French).

DVD publications

  • 8 women . Universum Film GmbH 2003, with cinema trailer, audio commentary by the director and actresses, making-of , two video clips with Ludivine Sagnier and Catherine Deneuve , information on the staff and cast
  • 8 women: great cinematic moments . Universum Film GmbH 2009, with cinema trailer, audio commentary by the director and the actresses, making-of, two video clips with Ludivine Sagnier and Catherine Deneuve, information on the staff and cast

Soundtrack

  • Krishna Levy : 8 Femmes . Wea Music France 2002, a CD with eight chansons each interpreted by the eight actresses, recorded in the Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris ; and 13 excerpts from the film music by Krishna Levy, some of which were recorded in the Studio Guillaume Tell and by the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra in Sofia .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for 8 women . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ a b c d e Romain Leick: Lionesses in the arena . In: Der Spiegel , February 18, 2002.
  3. ↑ a b c 8 women. Making-of on DVD, Universum Film GmbH 2003.
  4. ↑ a b “A bourgeois woman would bore me” . Interview with Fanny Ardant. In: Hamburger Abendblatt , July 11, 2002.
  5. ↑ When are you ready for comedies, Madame Béart? . Interview with Emmanuelle Béart. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 10, 2007.
  6. ↑ a b c Tobias Kniebe : The voyeur sees more . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 10, 2002.
  7. ↑ a b c "I always preferred dolls to cars" . Interview with François Ozon. In: Der Spiegel , July 15, 2002.
  8. ^ François Ozon on "Return to the Sea" ( Memento of September 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Interview with François Ozon. br-online.de, September 3, 2010.
  9. ↑ There is no such thing as an ideal life . Interview with Catherine Deneuve. In: Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , July 9, 2002.
  10. ↑ a b Sasha Noad: Fifties, French and ultra-feminine . In: The Age , December 11, 2002.
  11. ↑ Andreas Klaeui: The cinema is a woman . In: Die Tageszeitung , July 11, 2002.
  12. ↑ Gunter Göckenjan: "8 women" - Festival of the film divas . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 10, 2002.
  13. ↑ a b Actress Fanny Ardant: "I like the honesty in a man's relationship with a whore" . In: Die Zeit , July 28, 2004.
  14. ↑ cf. insidekino.com
  15. ↑ cf. fbw-filmb Bewertung.com
  16. ↑ cf. cbo-boxoffice.com
  17. ↑ cf. imdb.com ( Memento from May 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ cf. boxofficemojo.com
  19. ↑ 8 women. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 19, 2020 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  20. ↑ Oliver Hüttmann: Carousel of the neuroses . In: Der Spiegel , July 12, 2002.
  21. ↑ cf. film-lexikon.de
  22. ↑ Gunter Blank: The Divas Parade . In: Die Welt , July 7, 2002.
  23. ↑ cf. cinema.de
  24. ↑ cf. kino.de
  25. ↑ "A bitch-fest with great costumes." See 8 Women . In: Variety , February 5, 2002.
  26. ↑ “ 8 Women […] is indefensible, cynical, even grotesque; it is also pure - that is to say innocent and uncorrupted - fun. " AO Scott : A Stellar Gathering of Femmes Proves a Bit Fatale . In: The New York Times , September 20, 2002.
  27. ↑ “The film cheerfully lets us know it's a spoof of overproduced Hollywood musicals. [...] The artificiality is so jolly that we're not surprised when the first song begins, because 8 Women is in no sense serious about murder, its plot, or anything else. " Roger Ebert : 8 women . In: Chicago Sun-Times , September 27, 2002.
  28. ↑ 8 women. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing index , accessed on February 29, 2020 .
  29. ↑ cf. jasmin-tabatabai.com